SDRTrunk Control channel going idle

[ggmitchell]

Im running a RTL-SDR on SDRTrunk For the first week everything was running fine. My control channel for my county stayed on constantly and of course the TG# channels went active or idle. Now my control channel is intermittently going from on to idle . I have to stop playing that control channel and click play again and it goes back on for a short time before going idle off and on until it stays idle and I stop and restart playing it again. Is it a bad SDR radio, frequency drifting or did something in SDRTrunk java go bad. I just ordered a Nooelec V4 from amazon getting ready to send the RLTSDR back. Any ideas of what's going on or not going on?

 

[awasser1]

when that happens to me it usually means a weak signal. highlight messages once you highlight the contra channel. and see if you are receiving a bunch of error messages. i found you can increase the power also with the tuners not being locked. on the tuner tab at right bottom look at the gain. open the clicky box and raise it up. i make mine all the way higher to 495 and my error went away. you can experiment with that based on your area..

Alec N1AJW

 

[ggmitchell]

when that happens to me it usually means a weak signal. highlight messages once you highlight the contra channel. and see if you are receiving a bunch of error messages. i found you can increase the power also with the tuners not being locked. on the tuner tab at right bottom look at the gain. open the clicky box and raise it up. i make mine all the way higher to 495 and my error went away. you can experiment with that based on your area..

Alec N1AJW

Thank you so much for your help. As soon as I turned up the gain to 495 The control station stayed on and the traffic started lighting up. I dont remember ever touching the gain but it was set on 401. I could not see where I could unlock the channels. I do see how many are locked depending on how many traffic channels are active at the time. when they are idle it goes backed to 1 locked which would be the control channel. I had ordered the Nooelec V4 from Amazon last night right after I got a return ticket from Amazon for my current RTL-SDR thinking it might have gone bad. I know these cheaper SDR have a hit and miss on quality when shipped. I like the antennas that came with RTL-SDR better than the one that comes with the Nooelec. But I plan on setting up a better antenna in the garage attic which brings me to my next question what would be a good antenna to get a stronger signal and receive the surrounding county towers. Also As long as I have the Nooelec coming can you tell me why it would be better to run two SDR instead of the single one I have now. I have read quite a few people talking about running at least two but I didn't understand why. Now If I could get either radio to receive more than the FM broadcast stations on CubicSDR like some of the HAM UHF and VHF Id be all set. Again thank you so much for your tip.

 

[jjbllitz]

I have the same issue with gain and have to tweak on the gain settings from time to time . My challenge is one of the voice channels is very close to the control, and if I set the gain too high, then control will drop when that voice channel is active. But other times, I have to increase the gain because the control is too weak and I start losing it for a few seconds to a minute at a time. Kind of a bummer, but workable. It only happens a couple times a week or so.

I could not see where I could unlock the channels. I do see how many are locked depending on how many traffic channels are active at the time. when they are idle it goes backed to 1 locked which would be the control channel.

One SDR will always be locked on the control channel. To unlock it, you have to stop the channel through Playlist Editor, make your adjustments, then restart the channel. If you add another SDR, that one will lock and unlock as it is being used for voice traffic. But you can make the gain adjustments without unlocking the tuner.

can you tell me why it would be better to run two SDR instead of the single one I have now. I have read quite a few people talking about running at least two but I didn't understand why.

The max bandwidth these lower end SDRs can cover is 2.4 MHz. One of the SDR's will be locked to the control frequency, and therefore will only be able to pick up voice channels within 2.4MHz. If the spread on your tower frequencies is greater than that, you will need more than one to pick up everything. If this is happening, you will see messages in the event list about "no tuner available".

 

[awasser1]

Thank you so much for your help. As soon as I turned up the gain to 495 The control station stayed on and the traffic started lighting up. I dont remember ever touching the gain but it was set on 401. I could not see where I could unlock the channels. I do see how many are locked depending on how many traffic channels are active at the time. when they are idle it goes backed to 1 locked which would be the control channel. I had ordered the Nooelec V4 from Amazon last night right after I got a return ticket from Amazon for my current RTL-SDR thinking it might have gone bad. I know these cheaper SDR have a hit and miss on quality when shipped. I like the antennas that came with RTL-SDR better than the one that comes with the Nooelec. But I plan on setting up a better antenna in the garage attic which brings me to my next question what would be a good antenna to get a stronger signal and receive the surrounding county towers. Also As long as I have the Nooelec coming can you tell me why it would be better to run two SDR instead of the single one I have now. I have read quite a few people talking about running at least two but I didn't understand why. Now If I could get either radio to receive more than the FM broadcast stations on CubicSDR like some of the HAM UHF and VHF Id be all set. Again thank you so much for your tip.

You probably didnt change it. The software did. Im not sure what kind of system you monitor but I would keep the second dongle. If its a P25 phase 2 system especially you will need that extra tuner. if you look at your events far right and see "no tuner available" often that means you dont have enough dongles to monitor the system. you can always also put another system on there and run it at the same time.

Alec
N1AJW

 

[ggmitchell]

You probably didnt change it. The software did. Im not sure what kind of system you monitor but I would keep the second dongle. If its a P25 phase 2 system especially you will need that extra tuner. if you look at your events far right and see "no tuner available" often that means you dont have enough dongles to monitor the system. you can always also put another system on there and run it at the same time.

Alec
N1AJW

Yes Im seeing a lot of tuner not available messages. I'm monitoring a P25 phase 1 but the next county is going phase 2 and I will assume my county ty is not much behind. These are mostly Simulcast channels in most of the counties around here. I will be keeping both radios. To day its going back to the control channel going idle and staying that way where as last night it was running very well. I put it back on auto gain to see if that would help but its the same with 495 or auto. So I will get the Nooelec tomorrow and set that up with the RTL-SDR Prefered to the control channel and the other to scan the traffic channels. Thank you again for all your help. It is very much appreciated.

 

[ggmitchell]

You probably didnt change it. The software did. Im not sure what kind of system you monitor but I would keep the second dongle. If its a P25 phase 2 system especially you will need that extra tuner. if you look at your events far right and see "no tuner available" often that means you dont have enough dongles to monitor the system. you can always also put another system on there and run it at the same time.

Alec
N1AJW

Ok I had to share this and the photos attached with you since you have been so ready to assist me trying to track the problem down. So As I said resetting the gain helped last night but today it went back to the control channel going idle and staying there till I stopped and started it again (frustration) So I went to attach the 8 foot extension cable they supplied to the RTL-SDR dongle and then I was going to hook the other end to the antenna at the 3 foot cable coming out of that. Well before I even attached the antenna to the extension cable I saw the control channel go back on and stay on with no intermittent idle great. But when I attached the extension cable to the antenna end of the 3 foot cable coming off the antenna it went idle again off and on. so I disconnected the antenna and the signal went right back on with just the extension cable alone. If you see the photo of the tip of that 3 foot cable you will see the problem. At some point the inner copper feed line had broken off so only the outer ground was making contact with the antenna. So Im back to a very strong and constant signal using the 8 foot extension cable supplied. I wont return the anttena or fix the antenna end connection because I plan on putting up a better antenna. Just one 1/8 inch of copper wire took me from great performance to frustration of a puzzle to figure out. Im running one SRD dongle with control channel with 53 TG# attached and not getting any "tuner unavailable" in the message column. You're help is so much appreciated Alex. I cant thank you enough for your time and help. Have a great week . Here are the photos of the antenna, the broken tip and the extension cable that is my new antenna for now. 😁